I spend most of my time on this blog talking about great deals online, and how by taking advantage of the deals I post you can save money online. But I know some of the deals I post take effort or they go very fast, so if you don’t have a lot of extra time during the day you could miss out on these. I was talking to my neighbor yesterday about how I save money online, and she asked me–“What easy things should I do today to start saving money online”. And here’s the list I gave her–these 5 easy things you can do today to start saving money online.

Make a Upromise Account:

I truly believe there is no excuse not to have a Upromise account. Upromise is a program run by Sallie Mae designed to help you save money for college, but you don’t HAVE to use it to save for college. It’s a way of saving money online in an account, but you can withdraw that money at any time. Learn more about Upromise here, but basically you will want to add your frequent shopper cards and your credit cards to your account and activate the grocery store e-coupons. When you buy something off the coupons the money will be credited to your account. Your account will also be credited when you eat at a Upromise restaurant or shop at a Upromise local store.

You won’t get rich fast with Upromise, but the savings do add up over time. And the way I look at it is–it’s money I wouldn’t have if I didn’t sign up. Also I know it’s scary to add your credit cards, and you can use Upromise without adding them–but I’ve had an account since 2009 and I haven’t had any security problems. And since Upromise was created as an entity of the government I trust that they keep my information safe.

Sign up for a Cashback Website and Start Using it for All your Online Shopping

Cashback websites are websites that give you cashback when you shop online. When you reach a threshold, they send you a check. You pay the same amount as you would if you didn’t go through a cashback site, but if you use a cashback site then you get some of the money you paid deposited back in your account. If you do a lot of shopping online you can save a lot of money with cashback websites. Learn more about how and why to use a cashback site and then check out my cashback site comparison to find the right one for you.

Start Using Flash Sale Sites & Daily Deal Sites to Get Things You Already Buy at a Discount

Pick out a couple flash sale sites and daily deal sites that sell items you already purchase and subscribe to their emails. This way you will know when stuff you buy goes on sale and you can buy it at a discount. Flash sale sites mostly sell clothing or items for your house. There are flash sale sites that sell designer clothing (like RueLaLa), sites that sell housewares (like OneKingsLane), sites that sell discount clothing (No More Rack) and tons more. Here is a list of flash sale sites to help you find the ones you like.

Daily deal sites sell a lot of services in your local area. They can be good for getting things like oil changes, restaurants and haircuts at a discount. Two popular daily deal sites are Groupon and Living Social but there are many more.

Sign Up for Swagbucks and Earn Giftcards for your Online Searches

Swagbucks is a program that lets you earn “swagbucks” for your online searches and then lets you redeem those “swagbucks” for giftcards. Once you sign up, you just need to do a couple searches a day using their search engine and you will earn enough swagbucks to redeem for $5-$15 worth of Amazon gift cards at the end of the month. Again you won’t get rich with swagbucks but you will definitely earn money over time. It’s a good way to save for Christmas shopping. Use the toolbar all year, and then redeem for the gift cards when it gets close to the holidays. Learn more about how to use swagbucks here.

Create a Savingstar Account for online e-coupons

Savingstar is super easy to do and it’s online coupons or “rebates” on your grocery purchases. Savingstar runs like the Upromise e-coupons do (because Savingstar runs Upromise’s e-coupons). After you create your Savingstar account, you will register all your grocery store reward cards. Then every month you can go into your Savingstar account and select all the e-coupons. When one of them is used the money will be deposited in your account. When your account hits $5 you can get the money as a Paypal deposit or an Amazon giftcard.

I don’t purposely buy anything because of these coupons, but if I happen to I’m just pleasantly surprised to have the money in my account. You will want to select all the e-coupons because sometimes you get lucky and someone in line wants to borrow your card–and bam! you get the money 🙂 You can learn more about how Savingstar works here.

Now these 5 things won’t make you rich overnight, but they are small ways you can save money online and they add up over time. Another bigger way to save money online is to follow a deals blog, like mine!, so you can take advantage of good deals and new programs on the internet as they pop up. If you would like to follow S$WM, you can follow me via RSS, facebook or by email. I’m always excited to have new readers so we can all save money online and find great deals together!